Jerusalem, 4 May (AKI) - Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert on Thursday unveiled some of his new government's top policy priorities including the permanent incorporation within Israel of the major Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Olmert said Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank last year was a prelude to the core plan - moving tens of thousands of settlers from enclaves scattered throughout the West Bank, to settlement blocs located closer to the pre-1967 war Green Line border."The achievements of the [Jewish] settlement movement in main concentrations will forever be an integral part of the sovereign state of Israel, along with Jerusalem, our united capital," Olmert told the Knesset parliament. "I, too, like many others, dreamed and wished that we could safeguard all of the territories of the Land of Israel for ourselves, and that the day would not come when we would need to give up parts of our land."
"Only those for whom the Land of Israel burns in their souls, know the pain of the concession, the farewell to the land of our forefathers," said Olmert. "Even if the Jewish eye fills with tears, and the heart is torn, we must safeguard the principle - we must keep a solid and stable Jewish majority in our state."
Olmert described the disengagement from Gaza as the first, vital step towards consolidating Israel's borders, which he described as a "convergence plan". A solution would have to be found, to guarantee the security of the inhabitants of isolated Jewish settlements spread out over Judea and Samaria, which, Olmert said, "creates an intermingling of populations which is impossible to separate, and which endangers the state of Israel as a Jewish state."